


Thief

by itchyfingers



Category: Henry Cavill - Fandom
Genre: Chance Meeting, F/M, mysterious woman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-06 02:50:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4205145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itchyfingers/pseuds/itchyfingers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She starts by stealing his drink. What else will she steal by the time she's done?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Henry had just finished talking to Dan and turned away when a woman he didn’t know stopped in front of him and plucked his cocktail from his hand. He was surprised by her audacity, but not to the point that he didn’t notice the elegant curve of her neck while she took a long drink, or the way the pendant on her necklace dropped just low enough to draw attention to her modest but enchanting cleavage.

“This is very good. What is it?”

“Uh,” he stammered for a second as her question caught him off guard and he had to bring his attention back to her face, “it’s a Gini Bendricks.”

“Hmmm.” She took another sip, watching him over the rim of the glass with an amusement in her eyes that sparkled bright enough to warrant a carat rating. The tumbler was still pressed to her mouth when her lips curved into a smile. “I’ll have to remember that in case I ever have to order my own drink some day.”

With that she left, taking his drink with her. He watched her as she flowed through the crowd, not talking to anyone else but not seeming to be in a hurry either.When she reached the doors of Bourdon House, she looked back and smiled to see him still watching her. She took another sip of his drink, and then crooked her head subtly towards the inside of the building.

Henry nodded, but before he could take a step in her direction she held the glass out and shook it slightly. It was empty.She bestowed another one of her sparkling-eyed smiles on him and then disappeared inside. He’d fetch her another drink, get one of his own, and then track.her down inside Bourdon House. He might not know her name yet, but he was determined to discover it before the night was over.


	2. Chapter 2

Henry pursued the woman deeper into Bourdon House. She glided through the rooms like a phantasm, never looking back to see if he was following. He would enter a room just in time to see her exiting, barely glimpsing her hair or the hem of her dress as she turned a corner. Occasionally he would catch sight of her shoulders, or the cocktail ring she wore on a middle finger as her hand wrapped around a door frame and slid out of sight.

The stairwell echoed with the sound of her heels tapping on the stone steps and with his heavier tread as he continued his downward chase. Another flight of stairs disappeared under his feet before he finally heard a door open. When he went through it, he was in a part of the building he’d never been in before. Deep in the vaults, he slowly walked down the dimly llt hallway until he saw a door standing open a few inches, letting out a stripe of light into the corridor.

Henry pushed the door open to find a small screening room. The woman was lounging in one of the huge leather chairs, and she looked up when he pushed the door closed and leaned against it. “I brought you your drink.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ve never had to follow a patron quite so far to deliver an order before.” He crossed the room to hand her the glass and she let her fingers brush over his as she took it.

She smiled as her eyes fell on the drink still in his hand. “Please, sit. Share a drink with me.”

Henry relaxed into the chair next to hers. They sipped their cocktails in silence as they watched each other, two sets of blue eyes meeting over arcs of heavy glass.

He gave in first. “What’s your name?”

“Does it matter?”

“I like to know with whom I have the pleasure of conversing.”

“My name won’t tell you anything important about me.”

As difficult as she was beautiful. It wasn’t a prickly kind of difficultness, like thorns on a rose stem. Rather, it was the difficulty of trying to touch a priceless work of art while it was under glass. He would try a different gambit. “Fairness then. You know my name.”

“Do I?”

Two simple words punctured his ego for a moment before he saw the laughter glimmering in her eyes. “I have a feeling you know a good deal more about me than my name,” he replied sardonically.

She shrugged with her eyebrows. “Perhaps.” She took another sip of her drink and her lips glistened when she lowered the glass. “Call me Cat.”

“Cat? Short for Catherine?”

Her nose wrinkled like he had just emitted a foul odour. “No. Just Cat.”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “How often do men tell you they want to make you purr?”

“Entirely too frequently.”

“And when they ask to pet the kitty?”

“They get my claws,” she said with dismissive preciseness.

Henry felt her disappointment. Anxious for reasons he didn’t understand, he took her hand and scrutinized the long elegant fingers, tipped with an understated French manicure. “Beautiful claws.”

“Always.”

He kept ahold of her hand as he looked around the small room, brushing his thumb over the gentle ridges of her knuckles. “I wasn’t aware that there was a screening room down here. Do you come to Bourdon House frequently?”

“No, I simply have a predilection for knowing about hidden places and secret treasures. Nothing excites my sense of curiosity like a locked door.”

There was something about her smile he didn’t completely understand, and it piqued his interest. “Am I a locked door?” She had rejected a direct approach. Time to try a more metaphorical path.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And you’re curious about what’s inside?”

He watched the lights in her eyes flickering with mirth as she took another drink. “Or underneath,” she allowed.

Henry leaned towards her a few more degrees. “And you want to unlock the door?”

“I think I do.”

Was there the slightest hint of breathlessness to her words? “Do you have a key?”

Her eyes stayed fixed on him as she lifted their hands to her mouth. The tip of her tongue delicately brushed against his pinkie finger. Henry shivered as she continued to lick, tasting his skin before wrapping her lips around his finger and slowly sucking it into her mouth. His groan was barely audible when she wrapped her tongue around the digit, laving it with soft sweet intention.

Cat’s eyes sparkled with amusement as she watched him try and fail not to react to her touch, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off of her lips. They were full and plump and he was imagining exactly what she intended him to be picturing in his head as she slid them up and down his finger and finally –  _too soon –_  let him go. He was about to catch his breath when she held out her tongue. On the tip of it rested his ring. He hadn’t even been aware she was removing it, so strongly had she held him in thrall.

She carefully removed it and held it up between them. “I think I have a key.”

“You definitely do.” He would let her steal every one of his drinks for the next ten years and not offer a word of complaint if she would use her tongue on him again.

Again they watched each other. Henry wasn’t breathing; he wasn’t sure if she was. He was afraid to do anything in case he might change her mind and so he waited. Whatever she was looking for she apparently found, for she nodded sharply and dropped the ring into her palm.  Her fingers closed around it and it disappeared from view. “There’s somewhere I have to be right now. Why don’t we plan on bumping into each other later at the Savoy? You book a room and make your reservation under the name,” she paused and adjusted his pocket square as she thought, “Mr. Bourdon, and I’ll see you around nine.”

“I could just text you the room number.”

“I don’t carry a phone.”

“Ever?”

“Rarely.” She adjusted his pocket square again. “I don’t care for people being able to reach me whenever they deem it necessary.”

“You like being in control.”

“I do.”

“Hmmm.” Ideas danced, gyrated, and swiveled through his mind as he thought about all the ways they could fight for control. “Very well then. I’ll see you at nine.”

She stood up and he caught her around the wrist. “I would like my ring back, however.”

“I’ll give it to you tonight.”

“It’s a family heirloom.”

She bent over in front of him and the heavy pendant fell away from her skin and dangled in between them. “Why don’t you take my necklace as collateral?”

Henry eyed the jewel speculatively. “What are those? Emeralds?” The pendant was made of several small green stones linked together with gold and tiny diamonds.

“Tsavorites, actually.”

“Still, it’s probably worth more than my ring.”

“Definitely.”

He looked up at her, away from the dangling pendant and the curve of her décolletage that framed it in his vision. “However, it is an heirloom.”

“And the necklace isn’t mine.”

“Borrowed, eh? Well, I guess that means you have to come retrieve it.” He let go of her wrist and stood up. “Turn around.”

She did as she was told. Henry combed his fingers through her hair and carefully gathered it into a long dark tail before draping the silken strands over her shoulder. She showed no visible reaction to the cool slide of her hair or the rougher touch of his knuckles gliding against the nape of her neck. Her skin was uncommonly warm and he could smell the light floral aroma of her perfume as his fingertips glided over her throat. He wanted to lean in closer, to discover if she had dabbed the scent behind her ears, or in the delicate hollow at the base of her neck. Still she stood motionless, paying him as much mind as she would a shopgirl helping her choose an outfit. She really  _did_  like being in control. Carefully he undid the lobster clasp and let the weight of the pendant drag the sparkling chain lower until the pendant disappeared under her dress and was nestled in between her breasts before reaching over and pulling it back out. The cluster swung hypnotically on its chain in front of both of them. “Beautiful,” he murmured.

She hesitated for a moment before she glanced back at him to verify if he was looking at the necklace or at her. It was the first moment of vulnerability he had seen in her. Her hesitation lengthened as she saw that his attention was focused on her.

“Yes, it is,” she finally said.

Henry watched her eyes drop to his mouth. He licked his bottom lip. The tip of her tongue darted over her bottom lip, mirroring his movement and she leaned towards him. His body inclined towards hers a fraction of a millimeter and then he smiled and dropped her necklace casually into his breast pocket.  “Until tonight, then.”

Their mutual inclination was instantly gone as she drew herself up. Her jaw clenched once. A lesser woman would have sputtered. Henry’s smile broadened as he finally enjoyed being up a point in their sparring match.

She recognized his advantage with a quirked smile. “Until tonight.” Cat headed towards the door and paused on the threshold. “Clear the drinks before you leave, won’t you? Mustn’t let anyone know we were here.” She disappeared out the door, leaving him to play busboy.

Just like that, any advantage he had thought he possessed disappeared. He laughed as he picked up her empty glass and took it with him. The hallway was deserted, and there were no footsteps in the stairwell.

He didn’t see her again at the event. He hadn’t expected he would. As he climbed into the cab and told the driver to take him to the Savoy, he pulled her necklace out of his pocket and wound the elegant chain around his fingers.  The tsavorites were green fire in the sunlight as he tilted the pendant back and forth, admiring the depth of the sparkle. He tired of this after a minute and leaned his head back against the seat. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see flickers of light, but now they were in a set of blue eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Henry opened the door to his hotel room in response to the knock at the door. Cat was standing there, a charming smile on her face and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in one gloved hand.

“I was starting to think you weren’t coming.”

“Oh darling, don’t pout.” She handed him the champagne as she breezed past him. “Put that on ice, won’t you?”

His jaw set in frustration for a moment at her continually treating him like a bus boy. “Of course.” The door swung shut and he dumped the bottle unceremoniously in the bucket of half-melted ice that he’d acquired three hours earlier when he had arrived.

“I’m sorry I’m a little late. My engagement was a bit,” she paused and pursed her lips for a moment before continuing on with some secret amusement, “ _stickier_  than I thought it was going to be.”

“I see you found time for shopping.”

She ran her gloved fingers over the multiple strands of pearls now adorning her neck in various sizes and lengths. “Well, I couldn’t very well come to the Savoy half dressed, could I?”

“Not having a necklace counts as half dressed?”

“It depends on the setting. Sometimes I’m fully dressed wearing a necklace and nothing else.” She looked all innocence as she spoke the words, but the velvet rasp of her voice was the complete opposite.

“Well then, I think you’re quite overdressed for this setting.”

She watched him unblinking as she slowly tugged off her gloves and dropped them on the table. “Better?”

He considered her for a moment. “A little.”

“A lady always takes her cue from her host.”

Henry had shed his suit coat hours ago so he unbuttoned his shirt. As the fabric parted to reveal his bare chest, she dragged down the side zipper on her dress. He grabbed a sleeve cuff and pulled. She slid her arm out of the sheath of fabric hugging her chest. He pulled his arm out of the other sleeve and she repeated her languid movement before holding the dress to her chest with one arm, giving him a view of silky smooth shoulders crossed by tiny black straps and draped in pearls. He dropped his shirt to the floor and her dress slid a few more inches southward, revealing the upper swells of her breasts. The black ribbons split, caging breasts left bare to his view.

He waited for her to drop her dress to the waist but she didn’t. She just watched him. With a rueful shake of his head, he undid his trousers and slid them down his legs. When he stood back up, she let go of her dress and it slid down her body like a silk sheet revealing a priceless statue. The eyelash lace of her bra barely covered her nipples, either in reach or opacity, and her knickers were similarly diaphanous and minute.

“Did you buy those along with the necklace?”

“These old things? They,” again a pause and another laughing smile when she started again, “were close at hand.”

“Your hands seem to have a habit of choosing very nice things.”

She graced him with another one of her enigmatic smiles and then patted his cheek. “You have  _no_  idea how right you are.” She stepped out of her heels and strolled over to the open curtains. “Do be a dear and pour a girl a drink, won’t you?”

Henry’s jaw tensed again at her commanding attitude but turned to the bar and popped open the bottle of champagne she had brought, carefully stifling the cork and keeping it from exploding like a sixteen year old boy getting laid for the first time. He would show this creature that he had his own measure of control. He poured two flutes and put the bottle back in the ice for later, before following her over to the window where she was looking out at the London skyline and handing her a glass.

She took it from him without looking at him.

“It’s a beautiful view,” he commented, feeling inane in the silence as they looked out over the Thames and the South Bank.

She sipped her champagne. “It is.”

“The lights almost look like loose diamonds.”

She giggled and then caught herself. The girlish sound was completely out of place coming from the urbane woman standing next to him. “Something funny?”

“You must have had a few more drinks after I left or before I arrived to think  _that_ looks like diamonds.” She gestured out the window.

“And you consider yourself a connoisseur of diamonds?”

“I consider myself a connoisseur of many things.”

“Pearls, for instance?” He hooked a finger under several of the shorter strands and pulled her towards him.

She grabbed the curtain and pulled it closed as she moved towards him. “For one.”

He slid his fingers further into the pearls, letting them slip between his fingers as he closed his hand carefully around her throat. He pressed her chin upward with the tip of his thumb and made her watch while he took a drink. “Champagne as well.”

“Of course.”

She could act cool and collected, but he could feel her pulse quickening against his hand.  He stroked the velvety soft skin under her chin with his thumb. “Tell me, Cat, is there anything you’d like to learn tonight?”

“You think you can give me lessons?”

She might know who he was, but she obviously had no idea of what he was capable of. “It depends on what you want to learn.”

“And if I want to teach you?” she asked. 

He felt like he was fencing and she was testing for weak spots in his defense before she attacked in truth. “Well, I’ve never been particularly infatuated with the life of the mind, but it depends on the subject.”

“What if I want you,” she trailed a fingertip lazily down his sternum, “to be  _my_ subject?”

“I bend my knee to no one.”

“That didn’t work out so well for Achilles.”

Life of the mind or not, he had gone to public school. He knew that reference. “Lucky for me, you’re more Helen than Hector.”

He didn’t hear it she was so soft, but he felt her breath catch in her throat. “Do you think I could launch a thousand ships?”

“The combined naval fleets of the civilized world before you get out of bed in the morning.” Henry watched as her pupils dilated and her breath came faster across her pouty bottom lip. Her pulse heightened as she softened against his hand. Again there was that fleeting moment of vulnerability in her eyes before she regained her composure.

She took a drink of champagne. He felt her swallow, the quiver of her throat like cupping his hand around the beating wings of a small bird. “Well, I definitely don’t need to give you lessons in flirting,” she said in a playful attempt at nonchalance.

Henry was through with playing. “I think we’re done flirting now.”

“You think so? What subject do you suggest we embark on next in our academic pursuits?” She was willing to go a few more rounds.

“Kissing.”

“Who shall be teacher and who is the student?”

He put down his glass of champagne and clasped the back of her head. “I really don’t give a damn.” He held her face steady as he kissed her, hours of frustration released by the touch of his lips on hers. She didn’t quail under the onslaught or fight for control; she took what he was giving her, held it captive in her touch, and transformed it into something rawer, something rarer, and gave it back to him as pure delight.

He found the clasp of her necklace, the heavy toggle that kept all those strands together, and slipped it loose, freeing her from their weight and artifice. She didn’t need a thousand pearls to draw the eye; she was Aphrodite herself. He tossed them on the table, knocking over his glass, but he didn’t care as the bubbling liquid spilled and neither did she. They were lost in each other’s touch. The hooks on her bra were next, and as soon as he freed her of it, she slid her hands over his chest and across his shoulders, seeking purchase as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.

He crawled on the bed with her and fell on her breasts, covering one with his hand and the other with his mouth. She held his mouth to her for a few moments before pushing him back, pushing him over. She slithered downward, grabbed his boxer briefs and pulled them off. She tossed them aside and then stood up and teasingly slid her knickers down her legs.

“You are gorgeous,” Henry said.

“I know,” she replied.

She dropped to her knees again and Henry’s laughter was cut short as she took him, half hard, into her mouth. He swore, softly, slowly, as her tongue caressed him, teased him, licking and sucking, as the warm velvet of her mouth encircled him. He could feel himself hardening, forcing her lips further apart, and reached for her head. She swatted his hand away and kept her own rhythm, a frustrating not-rhythm that that denied him any steady fuel for the fire she was kindling. He should have known she wouldn’t make this easy on him.

Finally, she brushed her hair out of the way so she could look up at him, smile with her sparkling eyes as she sucked and licked and swirled her oh-so-talented tongue around the crown, watch him watch her, and there was something about seeing his cock in a woman’s mouth that made her even more beautiful than she already was.  She rested her hands on his thighs as she finally – praise the gods – settled into a steady rhythm. He reached for her head again and she stopped half way down his shaft and  _looked_  at him and he grabbed the sheets instead. She murmured something that sounded suspiciously like “good boy” but he couldn’t even object as she went back to lavishing attention on his cock. He tried thrusting into her mouth but she slapped his thigh and let go. “Stay still.”

He let out a groan at the feel of her lips releasing him and another one at her order.

“Are you going to behave?”

He managed a strangled yes.

Henry was positive he was going to tear holes in the sheets by the time she was done with him. She was heat and wet and perfect suction and the pearl of her teeth glided like a whisper against his shaft. Everything was perfect;  _she_  was perfect and he fought to keep from thrusting into her mouth, not wanting her to stop again, not wanting her to ever stop. His thighs tensed with the effort and she let go.

“Wha?” He couldn’t even manage a whole word.

She moved, lightning quick, and settled over his face. “Ladies first.”

His groan of anguish went directly against her clit and then he grabbed her hips. If this was how she wanted to play, he would show her that she had met her match. He plunged his tongue inside her, finding her already gratifyingly wet, and curled once, right against her g-spot. He laughed as her entire body trembled but pulled his tongue out and started licking her, over her labia, slowly teasing her. He had wanted her to know that he knew exactly where to touch her for the maximum effect and then not touch it again until she was putty in his hands. She tried to rock against his tongue but he held her steady, not letting her move. She grabbed his hair and he swatted her hands away.

The diamond sparkle in her eyes had hardened as she scowled at him, and it was his turn to laugh with his eyes as he continued to leisurely lick her. She huffed in frustration, and her bottom lip got the slightest bit poutier, but then her hands closed over her breasts and began to play.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

She looked daggers at him and he felt her legs move to climb off of him but he refused to let her go. His tongue dipped between her folds and danced over her clit and she stopped trying to leave. Another lick and she settled back into place. “Good girl,” he whispered again and then sucked her clit into his mouth before she could protest. He filled his mouth with the dark, musky taste of her, lips and tongue working together on the sensitive little nub. Unlike her, he wasn’t trying to drag this out, and his earnest efforts were quickly rewarded. The muscles under his hands stiffened and her breath turned into delicate gasps that turned sharper and harder as she got closer to her goal. She pinched her nipples and he scraped his teeth over her clit and she came with a trembling cry that seemed rent from her heart.

Before she was quite recovered, before she could stop him, he flipped her onto her back and dove between her legs, gently sucking her sensitive clit back into his mouth and pressing a finger inside her. If ladies came first, they were also going to come second. Another gasp as her hips arched up from the bed and this time he let her move, let her work with him, let her see how beautiful it could be when they were working together instead of fighting each other. She moved like a dancer even lying down, and her hips guided him, lead him where she wanted him to go. He pressed another finger inside her silken heat and she grabbed his hair. Her touch was gone in an instant and he grabbed her hand and put it back where it had been. Her touch was gentle, cradling his head rather than pulling or shoving, and he reached for her breast, squeezing and kneading it with the same care.  His fingers curled inside her and she bucked up off the bed, dislodging his mouth from its home. He wrapped his arm over her stomach enough to restrict her movement but not to keep her motionless. He loved the feel of her grinding against his chin, against his lips, against the roughness of his beard. His fingers crooked again and this time she was louder, her cry less delicate. She squirmed as he licked her and her fingers closed against his hair. One foot took up lodging between his shoulder blades as she lifted from the bed again. She was slick heat as he fingered her, and he felt the quiver of her around his fingers right before he felt her leg tremble and her heel slip down his back. He sucked harder, bent his fingers inside her, and she wailed, a sound that arced through the air like the beautiful curve of her body.

This time he waited for her to recover, pressing kisses to her heaving chest and neck until she could open her eyes and actually see what was in front of her instead of a blur of inconsequential color.

Her eyes glowed rather than sparkled as she fixed on his face. “Your turn,” she said as she dragged her fingertip down his bottom lip.

Henry opened a condom and she helped him put it on, stroking him before until he was thrusting into her palm and after until he pulled her away, not wanting to spill in her hand. He knelt between her legs, steadied himself and pressed inside. Her eyes dropped shut as he swore under his breath, the tightening grip of her both a release from suffering and a new exquisite torture.

She wrapped her arms around his back, holding him closely, almost tenderly, as he began to move within her.  He thanked god for the dulling effect of the condom so he could last as he kissed her again, kissed away the champagne to the hunger and heat underneath.  Her legs lifted, wrapped around his waist, shifting her hips so that he could thrust deeper and as he moved the next time, she groaned. He felt the spasm, heard the new wetness, and tore his mouth from hers long enough to lick his fingers before pressing them to her clit. It was a race now, the sprint at the end of the marathon, to see if he could make her come first before she worked her magic on him.

She sounded almost as good as she felt. The pleading whines as she dug her nails into his back, the gasps for breath as her legs tightened, rocking upwards against him, the ragged breathing that went sparse and shallow, combined in a perfect symphony. He provided the bass, deep groans as he thrust into her, and the heat coiled and tightened in his belly, and his cock throbbed and thickened in anticipation.

It was a tie.

A few staccato grunts. Her crescendoing cry. And then it was like the goddamn finale to the 1812 Overture.

He rolled off of her and sprawled on the bed, gasping for breath, taking consolation in the fact that she sounded as spent as he did. He reached for her, found her hand, and held it.

He wasn’t expecting her peal of delighted laughter.

Her hand slipped from his and he watched as she glided off the bed and sauntered over to where he had left the champagne. She took a long drink from the bottle, shivering as cold droplets of water dripped from the bottle down her arm. When she was done she elegantly wiped her mouth and held the bottle out to him. “Care for a drink?”

He took it from her and drained the rest of it before setting the empty bottle on the nightstand.

“So,” there was laughter in her eyes again, “ready for another round?”

* * *

The first thing Henry saw when he opened his eyes was his ring sitting in the hollow of the opposite pillow where her head had rested. He smiled and reached for it. She really had brought it back. He sat up and slipped it on as he realized he couldn’t see her or hear her anywhere. Already knowing the answer, he checked his coat pocket but her tsavorite necklace was gone. All that was left of the pearls were round impressions in the sticky residue left from spilled champagne. He hoped it wouldn’t cost her too much to get them cleaned.

He took a quick shower and redressed in his clothes from the night before going down to the lobby to check out. The attendant at the front desk handed him his bill to sign and he stopped just before he put pen to paper as the total caught his eye. He quickly scanned the itemized billing. “What is this £5,000 charge?”

The young lady checking him out looked at the bill. “That’s from your purchase at Boodles this morning.”

Henry felt his stomach drop through the floor at the mention of the jewellery store. “I didn’t purchase anything at Boodles this morning.”

“Did anyone else have access to your room key? They charged it right to the room.”

She told him to call her Cat. Very funny.  “Right.” He knew she had been too good to be true. “My friend must have picked up something when she brought her necklace down this morning to get it cleaned. Thank you.” He signed the bill, being careful not to press hard enough to tear the heavy paper.

He tucked his copy of his bill in his pocket, and on impulse, crossed the lobby and entered Boodles. He walked up to the lady behind one of the sparkling displays with his most charming smile. “My friend came in this morning and made a purchase. Dark hair blue eyes, probably wearing a necklace with a tsavorite pendant?”

“Oh yes, she was lovely.”

“Did she drop off her pearls to get cleaned? I’m afraid I knocked over a bottle of champagne last night.”

“She did. You need to be more careful. Pearls of that quality should be pampered.”

Henry accepted the scolding with aplomb. “Are they ready to be picked up?”

“Yes. Would you like to take them to her?”

“It’s the least I can do. It will save her from having to come back to retrieve them.”

A few minutes later he walked out of the shop with her carefully wrapped necklace. At least the little cat hadn’t gotten away with all her toys. If she wanted her necklace back, she could come get it from him.


	4. Chapter 4

_Much later_

Henry shut the front door and didn’t bother turning on a light as he called to his dog. “Come on, Kal. Time for a walk.” He grabbed the leash off the table and waited. “Kal? Come on, boy.” Again he heard no noise. Kal was usually waiting at the door for him, attuned to the sound of his keys in the lock and his daily routine. “Kal?” He walked into the living room and saw a smudge of white fur in the darkness. “Kal, down. You’re not supposed to be on the sofa.” It took him a second more to realize that Kal had his head in a woman’s lap. “What are  _you_ doing here?” He flipped on a light so he could better see the woman comfortably curled at the end of the sofa petting his dog.

“I–,”

He cut her off. “Never mind. I honestly don’t want to know. Get out.” He gestured towards the door as he looked away from her.

“Please, Henry –,”

“No.” He held up a finger. “ _Don’t_  use my name. Get out of my flat.”

She clucked softly to Kal and he lumbered off of the couch and she stood. Henry refused to look at her but he could still see her out of the corner of his eye, and it was obvious when she stopped right in front of him.

“I really am sorry.”

The thing that made him angriest about this situation is that she actually sounded apologetic. No wonder he had gotten conned; she was a better actor than he was. “For what? Stealing a necklace from me or breaking into my flat and stealing another one?”

“I had to get it back.”

“You could have knocked on my door and asked for it.”

She had the grace to look down at her hands. Her elegant fingers twisted around each other, devoid of nail lacquer or rings. Compared to how she’d been attired the last time he had seen her, she was remarkably understated in a pair of jeans and a high-necked jumper. She wasn’t even wearing earrings. “I didn’t think you would be particularly happy to see me.”

“You thought correctly.”

“I had to get it back,” she repeated defeatedly.

“Did you have another hot date you needed it for?”

That seemed to return some of her familiar spirit to her, and her eyes flared with anger though she kept her voice cool. “I had to return it before someone got in trouble for it being gone.”

“Jewel thief with a heart of gold. That’s precious.”

“I’m not a jewel thief.”

“What do you call using my credit card to buy you expensive jewellery without my permission? Or was that payment for the night’s activities? You’re good, darling, but you flatter yourself if you think you’re worth £5000.”

Henry was suddenly reminded that besides sparkling, diamonds were the hardest natural substance known to man. Her eyes would have drilled right through his brain if they had been diamonds in fact and not just in appearance.  Then a tremor of hurt crossed her face for the briefest moment before she whisked it away. “Very well. I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.” Maybe she wasn’t a better actor. She’d shown her hurt and he managed to hide the pang of conscience that hit him at being the cause of it.

She lifted a hand as if she was going to touch him but stopped and dropped it to her side again. “I know it doesn’t matter now, but you were worth at least twice that,” she said and headed for the door.

Henry closed his eyes like he had a headache. She made it several steps before he finally gave in. “Why are you here? Why now? After three months. Why now?”

He didn’t look at her but there was no sound of movement as he waited. “I,” she paused and he heard her swallow after several more seconds, “I need a safe place to crash for a few days.”

Of all the reasons she could have given him, that was not one he was expecting. “That necklace I bought should pay for a few nights at a decent hotel.” He was not going to be conned by her again. She obviously had perfected the role of mysterious femme fatale; damsel in distress was going to take some more work before it was ready for the big time.

“Unfortunately most places of lodging don’t accept gold as a method of payment; they prefer plastic.” And the shrinking flower had grown thorns. He liked her this way better anyway; she was easier to deal with.

“And of course, just like a mobile, you don’t carry credit cards. But it’s not so much a control thing as an invisibility thing, though, is it?”

“Yes; you’re very clever. But I should be on my way.”

She opened the door and he stopped her. “Where are you going to stay tonight?” Damn, she was good. Vulnerable innocent obviously hadn’t worked on him, so she had shifted to acerbic ingénue. The odd combination had piqued his sympathy.

“I don’t know, but like any good cat, I’ll land on my feet.”

She tried pulling the door further open so she could leave but he refused to budge. “Do you really not have anywhere else to go?”

“If I did, do you think I would be here?”

Pride. That was what he was seeing in her. Bruised pride. She’d humbled herself enough to come to him for help and he had insulted her. He sighed internally, resolute in the knowledge that he would regret his next action, and shut the door. “You said safe. You need a  _safe_  place to crash. Will you be safe here?”

She left her hand on the doorknob, as much to minimize the tiny tremors in it as because she was still thinking about leaving. “I think so.”

“How much danger are you putting everyone in this building in if I let you stay?”

“None. They aren’t the type to create collateral damage. I’d just not be here when you wake up.”

He wrapped his hand around her throat and she didn’t flinch. She simply gazed at him, waiting for his verdict. His thumb stroked over the doe-soft skin under her chin. “What’s your name?”

“Ca –,”

“Don’t.”

Her eyes darted away and then back. “Angelica.”

His hand tightened the slightest bit. “Try again.”

Her jaw firmed and her eyes went drill-hard again. “Romy, okay? My name is Romy.”

He nodded a few times as he mulled over his next course of action. His thumb brushed over her skin one more time before he dropped his hand. “I’m going to take my dog out for a walk now, Romy. While we’re gone, I want you to sit on the sofa and not touch anything. And then when I get back from walking my dog in the cold and the rain and the dark, I will probably feel sympathetic enough not to kick you out into it with no place to go.”

She nodded a few times and her breath was shaky. “Thank you.”

He hooked Kal’s leash onto his collar and then flipped off the light, leaving Romy in the dark again. He justified it by the idea of making it look like no one was there just in case someone was watching, but really, he took a perverse pleasure in leaving in her in the dark and shutting the door on her.

When he got back an hour later with a grease-speckled bag of Chinese food, he turned on the light to find her sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Everything in the room looked undisturbed, not that she would have left a mark if she had gone through things. She hadn’t last time.. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure you would be here when I got back.”

“I wasn’t lying earlier.”

He put the bag on the coffee table. “Unpack that. I’m going to have a beer. Would you like one?”

Her eyes sparkled the way they had over the rim of a misappropriated cocktail. “No champagne?”

“You do realize that this act isn’t nearly as charming now that I know what you are, right?”

“Awwww. Is the honeymoon over already?” She pouted at him and batted her eyelashes.

He ignored her and went into the kitchen and came back a few moments later with two beer bottles. He handed her one and then sat at the other end of the couch. “So, tell me what happened.”

“I don’t think I should.”

“If you’re staying here, I want to know exactly what’s going on.”

“If you know things, it could put you at risk.”

“I’m sheltering you, possibly from the law. You owe me an explanation.”

She picked up one of the cartons on the table and opened it. Her nose curled as she looked at the contents and she handed it to Henry. The next one she opened seemed to meet with her exacting specifications.

“I’m not actually a jewel thief,” she said as she broke open her chopsticks.

Henry started to say something but she cut him off. “If you want me to talk then you shut up. Eat your,” she looked at the carton in his hand and her nose crinkled again, “whatever that is and listen.”

Henry picked up a piece of duck and popped it in his mouth.

“I will not deny that I have a tendency to acquire things through not necessarily legal mechanisms –,”

Henry snorted and she stopped talking and began to eat. When he had been silent for five minutes, she started again. “I’m a jewellery appraiser for a well-known auction house. Some of the pieces that I appraise will be bought by museums because of their historical significance and will never be worn again, so, on occasion, I take pieces out for one last night on the town.”

“Pieces like the pearl necklace.”

“Yes.”

“Something tells me that isn’t one of the perquisites accruing to your position.”

Her mouth quirked in amusement. “You would be correct. At the moment I wasn’t thinking about the effect of knocking a glass of champagne over on it, but when I saw it the next morning, I panicked. I had to get it back to work and into the vaults before anyone discovered it missing.”

“So when you went back to pick them up and it was gone, it could have meant your job.”

“Yeah. The lady said my friend had picked them up and I knew it was you, and I knew there was no way you were going to give them back to me without a fight which I didn’t have time for, so that night, I retrieved them.”

“You broke into my flat, you mean.”

She waved away his objection with her beer. “You make it sound so nefarious. I came in through the front door, not the window.”

“Was I here?”

“You were asleep.”

Henry looked at Kal. “And where were you during all this?”

Romy leaned over and patted Kal, who was sitting on her feet. “Don’t blame him.”

“He’s supposed to be a guard dog.”

She took another bite of food and mumbled something that sounded remarkably like, “I drugged him.”

“Did you just say you drugged my dog?”

“Yes?”

Henry snatched the container of lo mein from her. “You don’t get to eat anything else.”

“I’m sorry but I had to get the necklace back.”

“You drugged my dog.”

She carefully put down her chopsticks. “It didn’t hurt him and you seemed passed out pretty solid too. Four beers and approximately a cow and a half’s worth of steak will do that to a man.”

“You were spying on me?”

“I needed to make sure you were asleep.”

“Why didn’t you just break in while I was out?” He had seen flashes of vulnerability from her on that night three months ago, but they were nothing compared to the way she couldn’t meet his eyes and her mouth opened and closed without saying anything and her eyelashes fluttered. “Oh my god. You wanted me to catch you.”

“I did not!” She shot up off of the sofa and started pacing.

“Then why?”

She made several more laps of the small room before she managed to answer him. “I wanted to see you again. Up close. I wanted to say goodbye.”

“Do you always get this attached to all the men you con?”

“I don’t –,” She stopped herself. “Never mind. It’s not like you’ll believe me anyway.”

“It is a little difficult to believe someone who has a history of theft, fraud, misappropriation of work property, breaking and entering, and  _drugging my dog_.”

“Like you’ve never taken home something from a set?”

He could feel a headache coming on for real. “Not without permission.”

“Of course. Your morals are as upright and honorable as Superman’s.”

“You don’t have to be a superhero to know right from wrong,” he shot back.

“I’m not saying that what I do is right. I’m not stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. I’m shoplifting expensive underwear and wearing diamonds that aren’t mine.”

“Why do you do it?”

“Because I can.”

Henry laughed. “Lovely.”

“What? I like pretty things. I want a lifestyle I can’t afford, and I indulge that every once in a while.”

“By buying jewellery with other people’s money.”

“I don’t know what the credit limit is on that card you used at the hotel, but I’m sure I could have purchased something much more expensive.”

“Well, thank God for small mercies.”

Romy threw up her hands in surrender. “You know what? I don’t even want it anymore.” She reached inside the neckline of her shirt and pulled out a long chain with several gold flowers on it, each one studded with tiny diamonds. “Have it back.” She yanked it off over her head and threw it at him.

He caught it before it hit him in the face. The charms were warm from being against her skin. “You were wearing it?” he asked in disbelief.

“I always wore it.” She headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Somewhere else,” she said in a tone of voice usually reserved for idiots and politicians of the other party.

Henry clambered to his feet as he heard the front door open. “I thought you didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“I don’t, but I’d rather be out there in the dark and the rain than in here with you.”

“But I thought you aren’t safe out there.”

“I’m not safe in here either.” She slammed the door behind her as she left.

Henry looked at Kal-el as if to say, “Do you see how she is? And you let her break in here twice.”

Henry sat back down on the sofa and kept eating. Kal watched him from across the room. “What?” he finally said. Kal looked at the door and then back at him. “She’s gone. And good riddance. She stole from me and she drugged you!” Kal whined and looked at the door again. Henry resolutely ate his way through the lo mein as Kal continued to disobey Henry’s commands to sit and be quiet.  The light glimmered off of her necklace where he had dropped it on the coffee table. Henry reached for the barbequed pork. Kal paced from where he could see Henry to the front door to the window where he would nudge the curtains aside and stare out at the rain and whine. He put down his food and picked up the necklace and shoved it in his pocket so it would stop staring at him. Finally, Henry couldn’t take Kal’s whining any longer. “Fine. We’ll go look for her. Satisfied?”

Kal trotted over to the front door and batted at the handle. Henry sighed heavily and grabbed his coat. It was still raining but Kal was right; they needed to go find her. If something did happen to her, he’d never forgive himself.


	5. Chapter 5

Henry scrolled through the Sotheby’s website on his laptop, looking for staff listings, as Kal rested his giant head on his master’s knee. They’d already tried the Christie’s website and hadn’t found a familiar name or face. After spending two hours last night wandering around his neighborhood in the rain looking for Romy, he’d returned home unsuccessful and had considered his responsibility settled. Over breakfast, Kal had returned to whining and staring out the window, so now he was seeing if any of the scant information she had given him could be turned to locating her.

And there she was. Ramona Blakemore. Specialist in the Jewellery Division at Sotheby’s London Office. And there was her number. Convenient.

He dialed the number and waited. The line was answered not by Romy, as he had hoped but by an assistant. “Can I speak to Romy, please?”

“I’m sorry, she’s not in the office. Can I take a message for her?”

“Will she be in later today?”

“I’m sorry, no. She’s taken the week off. I’m afraid Mr. Jameston’s death yesterday left her quite shaken.”

“Mr. Jameston?”

“Her boss. You probably heard about in the news. Stabbed yesterday afternoon on his way back from a lunch meeting. Police say it looks like a mugging gone bad.”

His stomach lurched. Her boss had been murdered? Was this what had sent her running to him last night? Was she actually in danger? “I’m afraid I missed the story. How terrifying.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. And poor Ramona. She went pale as a sheet and almost fainted from the shock.”

“I don’t suppose you could give me her home number? I’d like to check up on her and see if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m an old friend.”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t give out that information.”

“Of course. Thank you for your time.” He hung up the call and sighed. “Shit, Kal,” he scratched his dog behind the ears, “I think I fucked up.”

>< 

Henry sat in the dark and waited. He had been waiting for over a week, though not all of it in the dark of course. Sitting here in the dim light of her living room was new. He’d only been here for about thirty minutes. Mostly he had been waiting for some sign that she was back. Every time he came home he expected to find her sitting in his living room, but she had never appeared. Finally, today he had called her work and been informed that she was in a meeting, so now he was sitting in her flat. Waiting. He waited as the door to the flat opened. He waited as he listened to her grumble about the rain to the sound of an umbrella being shaken off and pair of shoes hitting the floor. He waited as she puttered around in the kitchen, putting on the kettle and opening cabinets and shutting them again. And he kept waiting, until she wandered into the living room and flipped open the laptop sitting on the coffee table.

Instantly she was absorbed in what was on her screen, and when Kal wuffled, she screamed like someone had just knifed her in the back.

Henry dodged the tea cup that was flung at his head and she was half way out of the room before her brain caught up with her feet and she realized who was sitting in the shadows.  Her entire body shook as she whirled around. Henry ducked another missile as she grabbed the nearest item at hand and hurled it at him. “What the everlasting fuck are you doing here?”

Henry stood and tried to wipe the spray of tea off of his clothes with both hands. “I came to make sure you’re out of danger so I can stop worrying about you.”

“Out of danger from everything except a heart attack, you bloody wanker.” She grasped blindly for the next item on the console table and Henry quickly saved the antique clock from an untimely demise by scooting between her and the array of potential ammunition and shielding it with his body. “How in the nine hells did you even get in here?”

She refused to cede an inch of space to him, and he found that their new positions left her glaring up at him and him smiling placatingly down at her. “Your landlord may be under the impression that we’re dating.”

If it was possible, she now looked even angrier. “He thinks we’re dating?”

Henry nodded towards the bottle of champagne he’d put on ice. “Since you prefer it to beer.”

“I’ve been in an MI-6 safe house for a week,” she smacked him in the arm, “terrified out of my mind that every sound I heard meant that they’d found me and I was going to die,” a wallop to the other arm, “and you thought it would be funny to break into my flat and hide in the dark to scare me?” Her voice had been steadily rising and it cracked on the last few words. Tears as hot as her temper fell from her eyes and she dashed them away.

“MI-6?”

“You didn’t think I came to you because I was scared of the boogey man under the bed, did you?”

Her shrill question shook almost as bad as her hands. She couldn’t seem to get them to stop, and as he saw the dark circles under her eyes and the way each breath came as a gasping soldier fighting against the hysteria clawing at her, he realized his retaliation had gone way too far. “I really scared you, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you bloody wanker.” She pressed her hand to her heart, like she could soothe it with her touch back to its normal rate instead of the frantic beating against her ribs he could imagine was occurring.

He didn’t know what to say so he hugged her. Maybe if he held her tight enough she wouldn’t be able to shake anymore.  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered as she stood stiffly in his embrace. “I didn’t mean to scare you like this.”

He stroked her back and she slowly relaxed. Vertebra by vertebra she leaned into him, until with a hiccough she flung her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. He pulled her more snugly against him and her body shook as she cried, a week’s work of terrified tears finally being released now that she felt safe.

As if he hadn’t been feeling like a complete shit for turning her out in the cold when she had needed his help, finding out she had been in such danger that MI-6 had put her in a safe house would have done the trick. Add to that his own skill at scaring her to the point where she was crying, and he was ready to nominate himself for a Worst Person in the World award.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was when she let go of him and he, with reluctance, let go of her in turn. “I’m sorry. I just meant to pay you back for breaking into my flat. I never meant to scare you.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” She retreated from him and curled up in a corner of the sofa, clutching a fuzzy silver throw pillow to her chest.

“I mean it, Romy. You’re still shaking. I must have terrified you.”

She didn’t look at him; she just stroked the pillow repeatedly. “Everything scares me anymore,” she finally whispered.

She was a shadow of the woman who had taken his drink and charmed her way into his bed. “I can lend you Kal for the night. He can kip at the foot of your bed if you like, or if it’s not big enough, he’ll be fine with a blanket on the floor.

“I thought you didn’t trust me with your dog.”

Henry shrugged. “He seems to like you for some reason.”

Romy held out her fingers and Kal trotted over to her and licked her trembling hand. She patted the sofa next to her and Kal looked back at Henry.

Henry pointed with his chin and Kal hopped up on the couch and collapsed with his head in her lap. “See? He’s quite taken with you.”

She wrapped her arms around the big dog’s neck and buried her face against him. Kal made a rumbling noise that somehow sounded soothing. She stayed snuggled up to the dog, slowly petting his back, and finally she stopped shaking.

“You’re feeling better already.”

A sound of agreement came from the direction of the dog.

“I’ll just be off then and I’ll come round in the morning to collect Kal before you leave for work.”

This time the noises coming from the sofa sounded like words, but they were so muffled he couldn’t tell what they were. “Pardon?”

“Thank you for lending me Kal.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, and one more thing before I go.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out her necklace. “You left this at my place last time.” He slipped the long chain over her head and then carefully slid his hands under her hair and pulled it out so that the delicate metal rested against her skin. “There.”

He’d had to bend over to fix her hair and now they were just inches apart, and her face was tilted up to his, exposing the long graceful line of her throat. His fingers trailed over the vulnerable skin and her eyelids fluttered for a moment and her gaze fell to his lips. Her mouth parted and she looked back up at him, need and want and yearning all mixed together in deep blue pools of enchantment.

“Stay,” she whispered.

Henry nodded slowly, hypnotized by the way her lips moved. “I’ll stay.”


	6. Chapter 6

One kiss.

He allowed himself one long, achingly tender kiss before he stood up. There was a flush of color in her face now, and though she still looked vulnerable, she didn’t appear scared anymore. Brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone granted him a glimpse of an incipient smile. Then he handed her the laptop she had opened what felt like a century ago. “You watch something funny. I’m going to clean up.” She tried to protest but he shook his head and she stopped.

He put the kettle back on and then stripped off his tea-stained sweatshirt. A rummage through her kitchen found some towels and a dustbin which he used to clean up the splattered tea and the shards of bone china. By the time that was done the kettle was whistling and he made her another cup of tea.

“What do you want to eat?” He handed her the cup. “I was going to call for delivery since your fridge is almost completely empty.”

“Whatever you want. I haven’t really been eating much lately.”

Another reminder of the stress she had been under. “What’s normally your favorite?”

“There’s an Italian place over a few streets. The food’s delicious as long as you don’t mind smelling like garlic for a few days.”

“Italian it is, then.”

He found the menu in her cupboard and put in an order and then settled on the other end of the sofa from where she was sitting. Kal thumped his tail against his master’s leg a few times and Romy shifted the laptop so he could also see the show she was watching. She didn’t show any interest in talking so he stayed silent as well.

She jumped when there was a knock at the door and Kal nuzzled her while Henry answered the door. When he came back with the food, she had turned on the television and moved to the center spot on the sofa, switching with Kal. Henry took the seat next to her and handed her one of the containers of food. She flipped through the channels, leaving it on a program until a commercial and then flipping again until something else caught her eye. Henry prompted her to eat every few minutes, and she would take a couple bites and then leave her food untouched until he reminded her again. Her feet were propped on the edge of the coffee table and her knees bounced incessantly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he finally asked.

“What?” Her face swiveled towards him and she looked at him with unnaturally wide eyes.

Henry put his hand on her knee and her leg stilled. “You’re still wound up. I thought maybe talking about it might help. You know, get it out or something like that.”

The remote dropped from her trembling hand. Henry picked it up and turned off the telly.

“I…” she trailed off immediately. “I don’t…” She stopped again and her hands twisted together in her lap. Kal nudged her and wormed his head under her arm so she was hugging him. “I got my boss killed,” she whispered to Kal, bent over him so Henry couldn’t see her face.

Henry retrieved the champagne. He poured her a glass and she drained it while he was pouring his and held it out for a refill. He looked pointedly at her food and she stuffed a ravioli in her mouth, so he poured another glass for her.

She took a sip and he sat down next to her and draped his arm over the back of the sofa, leaving it up to her how much contact she wanted. “Go on.”

“I told you I worked for an auction house. I appraise jewellery that is going up for auction. A lot of very important pieces came across my desk to appraise. They were old, older even than the family who was putting them up for auction. It should have been an easy task because they had been appraised before and the provenance was well-known and documented. There was one problem though. Many of the stones were fake.”

“Fake?” That wasn’t what he had been expecting. He had known MI-6 was involved but he didn’t think they dealt with forgery.

She nodded and took a sip of her drink. “Very good fakes. I almost missed it, but almost half of the gemstones weren’t genuine. Fakes that good take a lot of work to create; the cuts were old styles that aren’t used anymore, and the colors were perfect matches to stones from mines that haven’t produced in centuries. That means they weren’t just any fakes, but fakes made specifically for the pieces they were replacing.”

“So you told your boss.”

“Not at first. The family that owned these isn’t one you want to accuse of passing off glimmer and glass for the real thing without having more proof than simply me saying the stones weren’t real. So I started doing research. I knew the stones had to have been replaced since the last time they were evaluated forty years ago.”

“How?” He knew about carbon dating from hours spent in the Egyptian exhibit at the British Museum, but he didn’t think that worked with items younger than he was.

“You couldn’t make stones of this quality forty years ago. It’s only in the last few decades we’ve been able to make gem quality stones in labs.”

“So what did you do?”

“I used the last evaluation that described the stones to check for stones like that being sold.”

She made it sound so obvious, but he had never thought about this at all. Buying gemstones was something he hadn’t ever had to deal with except for a few doomed run-ins with diamonds. “Is there a Google for gems or something?”

She snorted in amusement. “Or something.” She took another drink of her champagne and Henry picked up her plate of food and held it out to her so she took a few more bites before she continued. “Some of the stones were large enough where they would have raised eyebrows hitting the market, and I can track that sort of news through trade sites. My fear was that they would be recutting the stones, and then I would have to track based on inclusion and color, and that would be much harder to do without them being sold through a legitimate source so they would be documented.”

He had played at spycraft as an actor, but it looked like she had more actual experience with it than he did. “Black market gemstones?”

“Exactly. It started with whispers but I’m implacable when it comes to my work. I finally managed to locate a few of the stones.”

“Where were they?”

“A particularly nasty weapons dealer was looking for a buyer for them in a former Soviet republic. Many of them are quite willing to sell off hidden weapons caches from the good old days.”

She  _definitely_  had more spy experience than he did. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. It took more investigating but I tracked them back to a…” She scratched her fingers through her hair as her mouth worked soundlessly. “He’s not a warlord. Mozambique is too stable for that title. But he has a lot of political power and he owns several mines there. His men had set up a lab where they were faking gems and slipping them in with genuine gemstones coming out of the mines to increase profit margins, and they decided to take it a step further and actually help individuals liquidate their assets and replace them with cut bespoke gems, and then sell the originals.”

“How did he come up with that idea? I mean, I can’t imagine most owners of the pieces you are talking about are going to receive a social call from a quasi-warlord.”

She shook her head. “Oh, it wasn’t his idea. These nice British boys, the sons of the owner of the pieces I evaluated, came up with it. All their wealth was tied up in real property but the cash flow wasn’t what they wanted, so they started looking for ways to sell off what they owned without their father any the wiser. They sent out feelers and managed to find someone who put them in contact with another person, and four or five friends of a friend later, they started liquidating the cultural heritage of Europe so they could have a faster car.”

“It’s amazing what people will do when they want things they can’t afford.” He took a drink and looked at her meaningfully over the rim of the glass.

Her soft lips hardened into a scowl. “I’m not like them.”

“They’re selling their own property. To horrible people, true, but they are selling things they own. I think they might have the moral high ground on this one compared to you.”

She shifted on the sofa so she was further away from him. “I steal things from high-end shops. I don’t participate in genocide. Do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”

Henry bit his tongue. They’d had that argument before and now wasn’t the time to have it again. “Go on.”

“Once I had enough evidence to show where the fakes had come from, and enough evidence to substantially implicate the children of a small percentage of the House of Lords, I took it to my boss. He looked at all of it and called up Scotland Yard. He was returning from a meeting with them when…” She finished the rest of her glass. “When he was killed.”

“My god.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, lost in a thousand yard stare that Henry had seen on his brother’s face when talking about missions he had been on. When pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them before she spoke again in a much quieter voice. “I took the rest of the day off and when I got home I changed clothes and started packing a bag. I was going to run but then my neighbor’s dog started barking his head off so I looked outside and there was someone scaling the fence and he had a gun and I panicked and ran.”

“And you came to me.” He was still baffled by her trust in him.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just go to the police?”

“Because I didn’t know if someone there had leaked the information! The only person I had told was my boss and he told them and then he was murdered. I just needed someplace safe to think and figure out a plan.”

“And you thought I would be safe.”

“Yeah, well.” She looked away from him. “Maybe I got you confused with your character. You aren’t  _actually_  Superman.”

He stroked the side of her jaw until she softened and turned to him. “I’m sorry I was an asshole.”

“It turns out if you show up at Vauxhall Cross in the middle of the night and start pounding on the doors while screaming your head off, they’ll let you in.”

“And they just believed your story?”

“I had a thumb drive with all the evidence tucked in my bra. They put me in a room for a few hours and ignored me, but after that they looked at all the files, they were much more accommodating.”

He’d seen what she kept in her bra. It made him much more accommodating too. “So you’re safe now?”

She shrugged and took his glass from him. There was enough left to wet her tongue. “As safe as I can be, I guess. Enough other people know now that there’s no point in coming after me, and a lot of the lower level people have rolled on the higher-ups. MI-6 wasn’t as interested in getting all the gems back as taking down the weapons dealers who had been laundering the gemstones.”

“That is understandable.”

“I know. Still, those pieces of history are gone forever.”

He nodded and she didn’t say anything else. After a minute she yawned.

“You should go to bed. I’ll take Kal out for a walk and then bring him back for you.”

She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but then she shook her head and left the room.

When Henry came back from Kal’s walk, he filled two bowls in the kitchen, one with water and one with the food that he had picked up from the local market. He knew better now than to let Kal eat garlic bread. That had been an odiferous disaster. He put the bowls on the floor and Kal noisily crunched his way through the kibble. Henry placed the bag on top of the fridge where Kal would hopefully leave it alone and went back into the living room. It was empty and he was about to sit down when Romy appeared in the hallway.

He took a deep breath of appreciation when he saw her. She was wearing a clingy chemise the color of emeralds. It was so short it barely covered her arse and tight enough that he could see the shape of her nipples and as he walked towards her the little circle of bumps that surrounded the areola became evident. It was so thin that she might as well have not been wearing anything for all the good it did.

“Kal’s eating right now, but he’s good for the night. Is there anything you need before I go?”

“I thought you were staying.”

Gravity read his mind and pulled the thin strap of her chemise off her shoulder. The saturated hue made her skin glow like a gold setting for a jewel. She was a very, very expensive jewel, and he knew he couldn’t afford her.

“I’ll sleep on the couch if you would feel safer with me here.” He owed that to her after turning her out last time.

She delicately touched his bottom lip with her fingertip, and carefully traced its outline. Henry shuddered from the caress.

“You don’t have to sleep on the couch. My bed is more comfortable.” Her finger slipped from his mouth to rest against the dimple in his chin.

“This isn’t a good idea, Romy.”

“Oh, I think it’s a very good idea.” She lifted up on her toes to kiss him and he stepped back.

“I can’t do this.”

Laughter made her eyes sparkle and dance. “I seem to remember very differently.”

“I can’t have a relationship with you, Romy.”

The pouting smile disappeared. “Why not?”

“Can you imagine what would happen if you got caught? ‘Superman’s girlfriend is actually a villain!’ I can see the headlines now.”

“I could stop stealing.”

“No, you couldn’t. You love it too much.”

She shook her head and her hair slid over her bare shoulder like waves kissing the shore. “I love the things I steal. But if I was dating you, I wouldn’t have to steal them.”

Henry’s jaw dropped as he realized the audacity of her proposal. “You want me to be your sugar daddy?”

“What’s so wrong with that? I’m not going to quit my job or anything, but a nice present every so often wouldn’t go amiss.”

“And by a nice present you don’t mean flowers.” Sardonic didn’t even begin to describe his tone of voice.

“Flowers are lovely.” She paused and stepped towards him again, so she was close enough to rub her hands over his chest and up to his shoulders. “Especially when they’re embroidered on silk lingerie, or made out of tanzanite.”

Henry didn’t even know what tanzanite was, but he was positive it was a gemstone. He shrugged out from under her touch and stepped back again. “I don’t date girls who are only interested in my money.”

“I’m not interested  _only_  in your money. I like the rest of you, too.”

“But you wouldn’t date me if I was still a bartender, would you?”

She frowned and her breasts disappeared behind crossed arms. “What’s so wrong about wanting to date someone who is rich? I have a preference. I want a certain lifestyle, and that’s only going to happen with someone who is wealthy. It’s not like I’ll shag any rich guy out there, but I know a lot of people who say they won’t date someone who doesn’t have a college degree, or that is a fan of some team, or that votes Tory. Mine is that I won’t date someone who can’t take care of me the way I want to be taken care of. That doesn’t make me a bitch or a gold digger. It just makes me honest.”

Henry still couldn’t understand why she came to him. Why did she trust him so much? He’d had his share of women wanting more from him than his heart and he wasn’t a fan of it. “Why did you come to me? Out of all the men who you have conned, why me?”

“You’re the only one I’ve conned.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

She grabbed his face and held it tight in both hands. “I’m not lying to you. Have I picked up men at events before? Yes. Was yours the first drink I’ve ever stolen? No. Have I had sex with some of those men? Yes. Have I left others hard-up and alone in an expensive hotel room? Yes. But you’re the only one that’s bought me a necklace.”

“How do you expect me to believe that?”

“I’ll show you.” She let go of his face and took his hand.

He followed her down the hall into her bedroom. The bed was smaller than the one he had at home, but the bedding looked like velvet and silk being suffocated by piles of pillows. It was the same jeweled colors that she favored in the rest of the house, the colors that made her eyes look like gemstones and her skin glow like precious metal.

“Look.” She pointed to the top of her dresser.

Henry crossed over to where she had pointed and watched as she opened her jewelry box. There were a few nice pieces, but most of it was costume jewelry. The necklace he had returned to her was back in its bag marked with the Boodles label. There were no more pieces that had individual storage. There were no more brand names.

He turned to her to find her watching him with tempered hope and expectation. “Why me?”

“You’re the only one I wanted to remember. You’re the only one who actually saw me, and not just the façade.”

Gods, could he trust that raw vulnerability he saw in her eyes when she could lie with the same ability? Would he ever be able to trust a girl who prowled into his life as a cat burglar? She was definitely a cat and he was a dog person. It would never work.

“I’m sorry, Romy. I can’t.”

Her bottom lip quivered for a moment and her eyes fluttered as she looked away for a moment. “Right. I understand.” She swallowed and licked her lips and then turned back to him with a bright smile. Her diamond-hard eyes sparkled. “How about one last time? Just for the fun of it?”

Henry hesitated. He remembered the feel of her lips, the way her tongue had found every sensitive spot on his body, and the silk of her skin sliding under this hands. The sound of her crying his name still echoed in his mind. The way they had fit together like they had been designed for each other, the way they had fought each other for control, the teasing, the laughter, the inevitable surrender. He would never forget that night as much as he tried, except he hadn’t tried. He hadn’t wanted to forget the way champagne tasted on her mouth, on her breasts, when drank from the enchanted pool of her navel.

He hooked his finger through the strap of her chemise that was still on her shoulder and tugged it down.

“One last time.”


	7. Chapter 7

He kept pulling the strap down, dragging his knuckle against the smooth warmth of her arm, slowing as the fabric pulled over the tip of her upturned breast and hung, frozen in time for a breathless moment, and then slid free, hugging her ribcage and supporting her breast, holding it up like a bottle of wine for his inspection. He let go of her chemise, pinning her arm in place with the strap and her breast disappeared into his hand. “What should we do first?”

“I have some ideas.”

***

His memory had not exaggerated the skill of her mouth. She was heaven incarnate and he would follow her through hell on his hands and knees if she would just keep – he gasped for breath as her tongue passed over a particularly sensitive spot – doing _that._ His hand clenched in her hair and she flicked her eyes up at him but didn’t pause. Her lips stretched into a smile as his thighs shook.

“Romy,” he pulled her hair but she refused to let go of him, “you’ve got to slow down. I’m gonna come too soon.”

Her hands replaced her mouth and touched him in ways her tongue couldn’t manage. “I want you to come, though.”

“I want it to last.” The last word disappeared in a gasp as her tongue proved him wrong. It was capable of everything her fingers could do and more.

“No, you come for me now and then you’ll be able to focus on me.” Her laugh drifted through the room like incense and she wrapped her lips around him again.

Is that what she thought of him? That he wouldn’t look out for her if she didn’t get him out of the way first? He felt like a child who had been given a snack before dinner so he would be able to wait without throwing a tantrum. “You think I won’t spend enough time on that sweet pussy of yours?”

Her shoulders moved in an approximation of a shrug as her head slid downward, bobbing, tilting, even further downward than before.

“Fuck.” The word came out in three syllables. His toes curled, and every muscle in his legs went rigid. He tugged at her hair again. “Slow down. Let this last and I will happily spend hours with my tongue buried in you, kitten.”

She immediately let go of him. “Kitten?” she asked in disbelief.

“You don’t like that?” His laughter was winded, like he’d just run a marathon.

“Do I _look_ like a kitten to you?”

Not right now. Not with her breasts rampant and her hips marking out the curves of a winding river. She looked like a goddess. Somewhere in the world there were monuments to her thighs, and someone was leaving an offering of fruit to her lips.

“You did earlier, when you were curled up on the sofa next to me,” he teased her so he could catch his breath and scramble after his self-control.

“ _Not_ a kitten.” Her fingernails raked down his thighs and she swabbed her tongue over him and then lapped at the crown while her eyes smiled up at him.

She was a cat with a saucer of cream and her face was daring him to say anything about it. He wove his fingers into her hair and let her do whatever she wanted. She would anyway, so there was no use complaining about it when he could – he groaned again, feeling like the sound came all the way from his toes – just enjoy.

***

His shoulders made excellent thigh rests. That’s what she’d said somewhere between the second orgasm he’d given her and the third. The first one had been all fingers as they had kissed, entwined with her arms around him and her head held in the crook of his elbow and his leg holding one of hers open to his touch.

There was one more left in her though, and he wasn’t going to leave it there all alone. Her fingers scrabbled for a hold on his head as his tongue flirted with her clit again. So soft and delicate, it was swollen and throbbing and the lightest caress was almost too much. Gently he licked and suckled and her fingers tightened in his hair.

“Henry!”

Was it a statement? Was it a question? He wasn’t sure, but that was what he had been waiting for without knowing it. The sound of his name torn from her in a moment of exquisite agony. No more kitten, no more Cat. Just Henry and Romy and his name like a lifeguard to a drowning woman.

He wanted to hear her say it again.

***

Henry couldn’t stop watching her as she writhed underneath him. She was so close. Every tense arc of her body spoke volumes about the imminent arrival of her undoing.

“Open your eyes.”

Her head thrashed on the pillow, refusing him.

“Come on, Romy. Open your eyes. I want to see you.”

“Then open _your_ eyes.”

He stopped his movement and clasped her face in both hands, brushing his thumbs against her dark lashes. “Open your eyes. I want to see _you_.”

He kept stroking her face until her eyes opened. They fixed first on his chin and then slowly made their way up to meet his. In the dimness he couldn’t read the expression contained in their depths, but he could read her face like a children’s book. The diamond-hardness had dissipated and she was soft and vulnerable, but like a warrior goddess who has set down her weapons but can still kill you with her bare hands is vulnerable. This was a gift she was giving him; a gift that he understood she was somehow incapable of refusing him. “God, Romy, you are exquisite.” He could happily suffocate in her tenderness and drown in her kisses.

Her eyes shuttered. The pillow of her lip trembled for a split second and he kissed her, to keep from saying anything else or to keep her from giving any more of herself away, he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore except the inevitability of this moment. From the second he had set foot in her flat tonight, this instant with her warm and clinging and entwined about him had been unescapable, drawing it to him the way the way a lodestone drew a compass needle north. He began to move again and her hands slid down his back and settled below his waist, gripping, holding, pulling, physical manifestations of her need for him. He rested his forehead in the dip of her nose and held nothing back from her.

Nothing at all.

***

Sleep evaded him as he counted the rise and fall of her back against his chest. He had draped his arm over her stomach and she had moved it, pulling it tighter, pulling him forward until he was leaning against her, and then she had burrowed back into him, like a wild animal hiding from a storm under a rocky ledge. She had threaded her fingers in between his and moved his hand to her pillow and now slept with her cheek pressed against it. Her skin was incredibly soft, not just her cheek but the rest of her, too, everywhere her body rested against his. She had tucked herself into him like a letter into an envelope. It made him feel needed.

It made him feel.

Henry kept counting until he was positive she was completely asleep, and then waited a few minutes more before shifting his hand slightly away from her. That infinitesimal movement disturbed her and she gripped him more tightly. Her breathing didn’t change at all, but her hand stayed taut. White-rimmed indentations formed on the back of his hand.

“Shh,” he whispered and pressed a kiss to her hair. The strands stirred as he continued to soothe her in velvet-furred murmurs. Her hand didn’t relax and he finally hooked his leg over her calves, wool against satin, so she could feel him pressed up against her from head to toe. “I’m right here, Romy. You’re safe.”

Her foot slid against his calf and stilled. Her hand relaxed.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

He fell asleep with the fragrance of her shampoo perfuming each inhalation.

***

He woke to the worst morning breath ever and the swipe of a rough tongue against his cheek. Blindly he reached out and patted his dog. “Okay, Kal. Gimme a moment here.” He sat up and stretched before opening his eyes. When he did, he remembered where he was. He couldn’t see Romy anywhere but the scent of fresh coffee drifting through the air meant she was around here somewhere. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed right as she stuck her head in the door. She was dressed in just a towel.

“I thought I heard you. I’ve got to hurry or I’ll be late for work, but I made coffee.” Kal padded over to her while she was talking and she bent down to scratch him behind both ears. “Good bye, buddy. Don’t let anyone else break into your master’s flat, okay?” She stood back up and smiled. It was tremulous at first, but then she lifted her chin and it hardened into place. Her eyes grew bright and then sparkled. “Thanks for last night. I’ll see you around sometime.”

“Romy –,”

Her hand closed into a fist around the thick amethyst plush of her towel, holding it in place right under the lovely dip between her collarbones. “Don’t worry; I’ll knock if I ever visit.” She turned and fled. A few seconds later the bathroom door clicked into place.

He pulled on his clothes and then hesitated outside the bathroom door. He knocked and the shower turned on. He knocked again, louder this time, but there was no response. With a sigh, he rested his head against the door for a moment and then left.

* * *

Henry knocked on the door to Romy’s flat and waited, still not positive he had made the right decision. She opened it and Kal woofled a greeting.

Her eyes widened when she saw Henry and she immediately squatted down to hug Kal. “Oh, I missed you, big boy.” She muttered loving nonsense and scratched Kal right behind his ear until his leg thumped like a rabbit’s against the wooden floor. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

Henry wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or the dog. Either way, they were a package deal and he’d been called worse things than ‘big boy’ in his life. He rested his elbow on the door frame and rubbed his forehead. He had spent the last several days arguing with himself about why he needed to forget Romy no matter how much he missed her. “Honestly, I’m not sure I should be doing this.”

She looked up at him, still scratching Kal. His tongue was lolling out and he was about five seconds from falling completely over. “Doing what?”

He opened his hand and a pendant dropped and then hung in mid-air, suspended from a glittering golden chain looped around his finger. She reached for it and he pulled his hand back. “Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast.”

She slowly stood up, keeping her eyes fixed on the spinning bauble. “That’s a flower made out of tanzanites.”

He had been right; tanzanites _were_ a gemstone. “Yes, it is.”

She reached to touch it again but then yanked her hand back. Her eyes darted to Henry’s face. “Does that mean you’re going to give me a chance? Give us a chance?”

The finger that the necklace was suspended from pointed at her. “You don’t get to ask for things. I’ll treat you how I would treat any woman, and if that’s not enough for you, I’m gone.”

A smile twitched the corners of her mouth and she swept it away. “I understand.”

“No whining, no pouting, no leaving websites strategically open, no texting me links to things or sending me pictures of you trying on clothes.”

She was trying not to grin now. “Yes, sir.”

“And, I swear to god, if you steal so much as a sugar packet from a café, I am gone.”

“I promise I’ll be very, very good.”

Henry unfastened the necklace and placed it around her throat. As he hooked the chain back together again, he saw that she was already wearing one. He pulled it out from under her shirt. It was the necklace from their night at the Savoy. “You were still wearing it?”

She didn’t blush. Romy would never do such a thing, but she licked her bottom lip and looked away abashed. “A girl is allowed one weakness.”

“Just one?”

She pulled the necklace off and then draped it, studded with diamond flowers, around his shoulders, like a noble chain of office. “Just one.”

Henry grinned and cocked his head sideways at her, making her meet his gaze. “Am I your weakness?”

She refused to answer but a faint hint of color stained her cheeks as her lips stayed pressed firmly together.

“Do I get to call you kitten now?”

That got her talking. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on, kitten. You know you like it.”

Her eyes sparkled, but this time it was diamond-edged laughter shining in their depths. “Henry?”

“Yes, kitten?”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

He laughed and he kissed her and he kept kissing her as he guided her back through her door and deeper into her home. Kal sat on the doormat and patiently waited for a command, but none came. When laughter drifted out the open door, he sighed and trotted inside and nosed the door shut for his oblivious, and besotted, masters.


End file.
